Policies

 

EDITORIAL POLICY

This policy describes guidelines in the publication process of our journal. 

African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning (APORTAL) ISSN 2521-0262 is an international, double-blind peer-reviewed journal that publishes original articles encompassing a range of current topics related to teaching and learning from all fields, disciplines and subjects. Articles may be rooted in disciplinary, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary domains. The main thrust of the journal, which will be published once a year is directed at bringing to the fore discussions, debates and issues as they pertain to teaching and learning across a wide spectrum of education contexts in Africa without a commitment to a particular approach, methodology or worldview. It is concerned with and devoted to high quality articles that unravel, explain or problematize contemporary complexities of teaching and learning. It also embraces the ideal of building a new generation of teaching and learning scholars through the promotion of primary research by new and established researchers 

1. Submission of manuscript  

Authors should read the “Instruction for Authors” on the journal’s webpage before making a submission. Manuscript should be prepared according to the style and specifications of the journal’s policy. Papers must be submitted electronically. The submission must be e-mailed to aportal.journal@ul.ac.za and addressed to: The Editor, African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning. All manuscript submissions must be made using a valid institutional email address.

1.1 Ethical Approval and Institutional Clearance

All manuscripts submitted to African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning must comply with internationally accepted research ethics standards.

Where a manuscript involves human participants, institutional data, institution-based research, or explicitly identifies an institution, organisation, school, university, or research site in the title, abstract, or main text, authors are required to provide:

  • Evidence of ethical approval from a recognised Research Ethics Committee (REC), Institutional Review Board (IRB), or equivalent authority; or
  • A formal written exemption from an authorised ethics body, where ethical approval was not required.

Ethical approval details (including the approving body and reference number) must be clearly stated in the manuscript under an Ethical Considerations or Ethics Statement section.

Manuscripts that do not include the required ethical documentation may be returned to authors at the desk review stage or declined without external peer review. This requirement applies uniformly to all submissions and does not constitute a retrospective or ad hoc condition.

The journal reserves the right to request additional clarification or documentation where ethical compliance is unclear. Failure to meet ethical requirements may result in rejection or withdrawal of the manuscript at any stage of the editorial process.

2. Review process  

The review process is an important aspect of the publication process of an article. It helps an editor in making decision on an article and also enables the author to improve the manuscript. APORTAL operates a double blind review process. Author(s) identity is removed from the manuscript and shielded from the reviewers during the review process. The reviewer is left with only the manuscript without any information that might enable him/her uncovers the identity of the author(s). Information removed includes the author(s) name, address/affiliation, country, phone/fax and email. 

The review process consists of the following: 1. The editors review the submitted manuscript for proper format and consistency with the mission of the journal. The author(s) is notified if the manuscript is deemed inappropriate for further consideration. 2. Manuscripts that pass the initial review are sent to an associate editor and a minimum of two reviewers for formal review. 3. The editors evaluate comments and recommendations of the reviewers and the associate editor and informs the author(s) of the decision regarding the publication of the manuscript (reject, accept, or revise/resubmit). The editors’ decision and comments, without identifying information, are forwarded to the associate editors and reviewers. 4. Requested revisions are returned to the same reviewers. In addition to the revised manuscript, the author(s) should submit (a) responses to the reviewer comments that restate the comments and identify how and where the comment is addressed in the revision (b) certificate of language editing (c) TURNITIN report for plagiarism. 

 3. Concurrent reviews

Manuscripts under consideration by another journal or other publisher should not be submitted.

The submitting author will be asked to verify this during the web-based submission process.

4. Resubmissions

Manuscripts that have been rejected are not eligible for further consideration by the same journal and thus should not be resubmitted. If a revision is allowed, it will be explicitly stated in the Editor’s decision. Other revisions of previously rejected manuscripts will be promptly returned to the authors without review. 

5. Changes in authorship

Whenever there is a need to make changes in the authorship of a manuscript or a published article, the changes will be implemented according to APORTAL specification. Only corresponding authors can make request for a change in authorship.  

6. Plagiarism and Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to plagiarize is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own,” “use (another’s production) without crediting the source,” or to “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize Accessed March 29, 2017). The American Marketing Association considers other forms of plagiarism to include “selfplagiarism”—instances in which an author borrows from his or her own previously published work without the proper citation. It is also unacceptable to submit manuscripts to APORTAL journals that have previously been published anywhere in any language. 

(https://www.ama.org/publications/Pages/ama-editorial-policy-journals.aspx}  

The African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning strictly prohibits the use of AI-generated content in manuscript preparation. Authors must not use generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, DALL·E, Midjourney, etc.) to generate, write, edit, or translate any part of the manuscript text, including the abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, figures, tables, or references. This policy is intended to preserve the integrity of academic authorship and ensure that all content submitted to the journal reflects original human scholarly work. Manuscripts found to contain AI-generated content without disclosure, or in violation of this policy, will be rejected or retracted if discovered post-publication. By submitting a manuscript, authors affirm that they have not used AI tools in ways that conflict with this policy. If used: Authors must clearly indicate the use of tools based on large language models and generative AI for data or code generation, data collection, cleaning, analysis, or interpretation, (which tool was used and for what purpose), preferably in the methods or acknowledgements sections.

7. Open access policy

African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning is an Open Access journal. All its content is available free of charge. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search the full text of articles, as well as to establish HTML links to them, without having to seek the consent of the author or publisher.

8. Publication

The journal publishes three (3) regular issues per year. Authors are not allowed to publish (singly or jointly) more than two articles in the journal per year. As a rule, only one article per author or co-author per year will be accepted for refereeing and possible publication.

9. Conflict of interest

All authors must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the content, analysis, or interpretation of their manuscript. A conflict of interest may include, but is not limited to:

  • Financial relationships (e.g., funding, paid consultancy, stock ownership, honoraria, or patent-licensing arrangements);
  • Personal relationships or rivalries;
  • Academic or institutional affiliations that may benefit from the publication;
  • Any other circumstances that may compromise, or be seen to compromise, objectivity.

Disclosure Requirements:

  • A conflict of interest statement must be included in the manuscript under a separate heading titled “Conflict of Interest” before the References section.
  • If no conflicts exist, authors should state: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”
  • Editors and reviewers must also disclose any conflicts that may affect their impartial handling of a manuscript.

Failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest may result in manuscript rejection, retraction, or other corrective actions.

10. ORCID Requirement

To support transparency in authorship and ensure accurate attribution of scholarly work, African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning requires that all submitting and corresponding authors provide an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) at the time of manuscript submission.

  • ORCID must be included in the author information section of the manuscript and in the submission email.
  • Authors who do not already have an ORCID iD can register for one at https://orcid.org  registration is free and takes only a few minutes.

By linking publications to ORCID iDs, the journal helps ensure proper author identification, reduce name ambiguity, and facilitate recognition across databases and indexing services.

11. Funding disclosure

All authors must disclose any sources of funding that supported the research presented in the manuscript. This includes grants, fellowships, institutional support, or sponsorships from commercial, governmental, or non-governmental organizations.

  • Funding information should be included in a separate section titled “Funding” before the References section of the manuscript.
  • Authors should clearly state the name(s) of the funding body/bodies, the grant number(s) (if applicable), and the role of the funder(s) in the research and/or manuscript preparation.
  • If no external funding was received, authors should state: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

Transparent disclosure of funding sources supports research integrity and allows readers to assess potential influences on the research outcomes.

12. Procedures for dealing with complaints and appeals

Anyone may inform the editors and/or Editorial Staff at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.

Investigation:

  • Editor / Editor-in-Chief will consult with the Section Editors / Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation. 
  • During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating. 
  • The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them. 
  • If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious. 

Minor misconduct

  • Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:
  • Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred. 
  • A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct. 

Major misconduct

  • The Editor / Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Section Editors / Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):
  • Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct. 
  • Informing the author´s (or reviewer´s) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
  • The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
  • A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
  • Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.
  • When dealing with complaints and appeals, the editorial team will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):  https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts. 

13. Copyright and licensing

Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Authors can enter the separate, additional contractual arrangements for non-exclusive distribution of the published paper (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

14. Metadata policy

The journal metadata are freely accessible to all, and freely reusable by all, under the terms of the Creative Commons Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license.

15. Disclaimer

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. The publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

16. Article Withdrawal Policy

Our peer-reviewed academic journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity and research ethics. We publish original, high-quality research that conforms to the principles of scholarly research and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in our field. In rare cases, it may become necessary for our journal to retract a published article. The decision to retract an article will not be taken lightly and will only be considered if there is clear evidence of a serious breach of our publication standards or ethical guidelines.

The following criteria and conditions may result in an article being withdrawn from our journal:

Lack of ethics

 If the research was conducted in a manner that violates established ethical guidelines, such as lack of proper informed consent from participants, mistreatment of animals, or inappropriate exposure of subjects.

Previously published work

If the article or substantial parts of it have already been published elsewhere without proper attribution or permission, including simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals.

AI-generated content

If the article or substantial parts of it were generated by artificial intelligence without proper human oversight and interpretation, as our journal requires that all research be conducted and analysed by qualified researchers.

Plagiarism

If the article contains plagiarised content, including text, data or images, without proper citation or permission from the original source, as our journal has a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism.

Consequences

If an article is retracted, our journal will inform the authors and the scientific community immediately. The retracted article will be removed from our online platform and a notice will be issued explaining the reasons for the retraction.

We take our responsibility as a trusted source of scientific knowledge seriously and are committed to maintaining the integrity of the research we publish. By upholding these standards, we aim to maintain the trust of our readers and the wider scientific community.

17. Open Access & Creative Commons Licensing

All articles published in APORTAL are made freely available to the public under a Creative Commons license to support open access, wide dissemination, and reuse of scholarly work. Unless otherwise specified, articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which allows anyone to read, download, copy, share, distribute, and adapt the content in any medium or format, provided proper attribution is given to the original authors and APORTAL. Authors retain copyright to their work and grant the journal the non-exclusive right to publish and distribute their articles under this license.

For full details on Creative Commons licensing terms and policies, please visit the Creative Commons official policy page:

🔗 https://creativecommons.org/policies/